"A [preacher] who does not love art, poetry, music and nature can be dangerous. Blindness and deafness toward the beautiful are not incidental; they are necessarily reflected in his [preaching]." — BXVI

10 May 2012

Questions for the Friar

Ask Father a Question (or something like that) was a regular feature on HancAquam for a year or two. . .mostly from emails or questions asked after Mass.

I studied at the Anselmianum when classes were still in "Latin". Of course, the Latin used by the profs varied greatly by their mother tongue.

I was telling a story about a class while I was at dinner back at the motherhouse and quoted my American prof's invitation at the end of his lecture, "Suntne quaestiones?" One of the patres graviores at a neighboring table, an American but a Latinist, pounded on his table and growled loudly "No. No. No. Not "Suntne quaestiones"! It's "Si quis interrogaret!"

While the doctrine of Original Sin is an excellent description of how mankind is, I believe it has big problems as an explanation to educated 21st century people of how we got to be this way.

The evolutionary evidence is overwhelming that homo sapiens evolved from primates, animals who had already long known death and who were equipped with all the savage capacities that are, frankly, necessary to survive on planet earth. How does one understand “Adam and Eve” in a way that does not require us to imagine that there was a time when a homo sapiens couple had an undarkened intellect and a will unencumbered by anger, fear, and lust?

As your confrere Aidan Nichols writes, “...unless evil marred the creation of humanity contingently (i.e., historically), it could only have done so essentially (i.e., by God's own creative act), which is unthinkable.” How can we imagine this historical event?

I have asked the fellas at Godzdogz to take this as quodlibetal question twice, with no response.

My husband and I are building a home altar. He's building, I'm doing the embroidery)

My question: Before an home altar can be used (obviously just for private prayer not a mass) does it need to be blessed by an ordained minister (deacon, priest etc). If so, would the average pastor know the blessing?

Here's one for you Father. How does a Catholic respond to the philosophy of Monism coming out of new age gurus like Eckhart Tolle. I'm finding a lot of my friends hold the view that there is no such thing as a transcendent God and we're all actually God, but I'm poorly equipped philosophically to argue against that idea. Any thoughts?